The Chess Mind

Topics include tournament preparation, the Accelerated Dragon, the Caro-Kann and a Sicilian ending. Check it out, here.

It had been a while, so I decided to look at the highlights of the latest batch of viewer submissions; you can see the results here. It's free and requires no special software - have a look!

On this week's show, I take a look at a pair of endings in two distinct, but linked, shows. The question under discussion is given in the subject line, above, but I'm hesitant to say more - it's more interesting for viewers to solve the problems without having the answer foreshadowed. What I will say is that the show also highlights the common battle in chess between the general and the concrete, between rules of thumb and the specific features of a given position. Both are needed in human chess; the art is balancing them.

Enough background! The first, main video is here, and there's a bonus video here. To my great surprise, the day after I recorded the first video I came across a remarkably similar example played the day before, so I had to present it as well. Enjoy!

Here it is, ready for your viewing pleasure. Topics covered include the Closed Sicilian, a gambit line against the French Defense, the English Attack against the Najdorf and the Paulsen/Taimanov, and even some chess psychology.

The show is free and available on-demand (for about five weeks), and doesn't require any special software.